FINCHforum

My two zebra finches appear to be molting. They're losing several feathers a day (mostly down feathers but also some flights), but they don't seem to have any bald spots, so new feathers must be taking their place.

Anyway, I was wondering if I should supplement their diet at all in order to make the molting process go smoothly and quickly? And since I'm very new at this, how long does a finch take to go through its molt, on average??

Right now, I'm feeding them Abba seed and supplementing that with egg food each day as well as a separate dish with lafebers finch pellets. Is there anything that they need that they're not getting from their usual diet?

Try to feed them some fresh greens and maybe some grated carrots every once in a while. The vitamins and antioxidants help them regrow feathers fast.

They seemed to really like spinach, but I was told that I shouldn't feed them that too often. I've been giving them romaine lettuce every now and then instead, but they seem to be more interested in playing with the leaves and tossing them around the cage than actually eating them. And they didn't eat the carrots I gave them once, but maybe they didn't recognize them as food?

Sometimes it takes them a little while to recognize new foods, we just have to keep trying. They will take a bite sooner or later

Are these juveniles or adults?
I give mine a fresh egg food mix to give them protein to regrow the feathers.

Adults get the egg food mix 2 or 3x a week.
Juveniles molting to adult feathers get the egg food daily.

These are adult males. I'm going to give them some veggies in addition to the egg food tomorrow, I think. Hopefully they'll actually eat them and not just make a big mess -_-

Adult zebras don't have a general molt like gouldians or other birds. They molt all the time a few feathers at a time. So you will have feathers on the floor constantly

Do you cut the greens in tiny pieces? That helps alot. I also mix my greens with the egg and whatever else I give them that's fresh. You can sprinkle some millet on it too. My Societies love their greens and fresh food but the Zebras aren't as crazy about them. It must be their breed because they were fostered and raised by Societies. Mine also love dandelion leaves cut up in small pieces. When I grate carrots I use my tiny zester. Don't know if that helps any.

ac12 wrote:Adult zebras don't have a general molt like gouldians or other birds. They molt all the time a few feathers at a time. So you will have feathers on the floor constantly

Wait, really? Its weird though, because for the first couple of weeks I had them, I didn't see a single feather on the floor or at the bottom of the cage even.

I do break the lettuce into pretty small pieces, but I can definitely try grating it and mixing it in with the egg food

I'm vacuming up feathers every day. Some are from my molting gouldians, but some are definitely from the zebras.

I put the lettuce and other veggies on the cutting board and go at it with a LARGE knife to chop it into tiny pieces. I tried a food processor, but that only works for carrots and yams, lettuce does not get chopped up very well, so I just use a knife.

I have not tried what some do, putting a whole leaf (or part of the leaf) out in the cage and let the birds pick at it.

This is really nice diet. This type of diet is really useful. They surly get benefit from this. Thanks for sharing this.